Setting aside my issues with gendered nouns and adjectives and the use of the male plural to describe a group of mixed genders, I really love French.
Why, do you ask?
My French composition course this week had a lesson about l’injustice dans la société [injustices in society]. I have an essay about injustices due this weekend (note: writing essays in another language is really difficult. Thus, I procrastinate until the last second).
On the list of vocabulaire utile [useful vocabulary] provided by my professor is the following:
le sexisme (un[e] phallocrate)
That’s right, the French word for someone who is a “male chauvinist (pig),” or has sexisme [sexism], is un phallocrate.
I knew I picked the right language to study. Expect later posts referencing phallocrats.
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Ah, yes. 9 million 999 thousand women and 1 measly man and you gotta use “ils.” I fucking hate that. I think it’s a perfectly acceptable act of rebellion to use “elles.”
But, yes, French is an awesome language.
Excellent! Nice to see something to be satisfied with when it comes to typically annoyingly-gendered languages. Now I’m curious to learn the word for male chauvinist in German, which I am currently studying. Might ask that tomorrow, see if I can derail the lesson for a bit. :)
Amelia – doesn’t German not have the gender issues that English and romantic languages have?
Well, in German, there are three genders for nouns. As far as adjective endings go, those are not gendered. And for the plural, that always ends in “e” which is technically a feminine ending.
Compared to Spanish, which I have also studied, I’d say you’re right, it is less gendered.
Although in German, the word for “virgin” is die Jungfrau (young woman). Nicee.
I took two years of college French back in the 1970’s and I’m amazed that I can still scan and understand written French to some degree. It’s a beautiful language and it stuck with me much more than I would have guessed!
What’s the pronunciation on that? What about phallocracy?